A computer avatar is a personalized graphic file or rendering that represents a computer user. In virtual worlds, the avatar is a fully rendered interactive character.
A virtual world is an animated three-dimensional world created with computer-graphics imagery (CGI) and other rendering software. In a virtual world, an avatar may interact within a virtual environment. The avatar manipulates and interacts with objects in the virtual world by mouse movements and keystrokes issued by the user.
Avatars in a virtual world or virtual universe (VU) have a wide range of business and social experiences, and such experiences are becoming more important as business and social transactions are becoming common in VUs such as the Second Life® virtual world. Second Life is a privately owned three-dimensional (3-D) virtual world, made publicly available in 2003 by Linden Research, Inc., and is created entirely by its membership. Second Life is a registered trademark of Linden Research, Inc. sometimes referred to as Linden Lab.
As the population of VUs increases, and as the density and intensity of personal activities and commercial transactions increase, greater emphasis may be placed on advertising. Just as in the real world, innovative and intrusive advertising activities will be launched and widely distributed. Unlike the real world, advertising in VUs is much less constrained by the limiting laws of physics and economics. One advertising mechanism marries unsolicited personal messaging (“spam”) with the concept of automated computer controlled advertising avatars that roam around the VU looking to communicate with potential human-controlled avatars.
In some systems, advertisement avatars are automated. Automated avatars can create situations similar to that spam emails can cause in an email communication system, a.k.a., “avatar-based VU spam”.